The Queue: It's alive

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) knows what the inside of an Nvidia GTX 660 looks like now.

I just got done spending the last few days putting a new computer together, and to celebrate I was totally going to put up the pivotal "It's alive" scene from Frankenstein, but decided on Gene Wilder and his monster dancing to Putting on the Ritz in Young Frankenstein instead. Why? Because that movie is insane and I love it, that's why. Warcraft questions, let's answer those!

Chrth asked:

Q4TQ: There are several areas in game where the current status is not reflected visually. Ignoring any impact to gameplay (such as questing NPCs), what would you like to see updated? I'd like to see Dun Modr (on the Wetlands side) shown to be under control of the Ironforge Dwarfs again. Maybe even see efforts to rebuild the Thandol Span.

That's actually a good idea -- the Thandol Span has been shattered since vanilla. Personally, I think it's probably high time for that giant tornado in Darkshore to go away, and I imagine that big volcano in Ashenvale would have been taken care of by now as well. But then of course there's the park in Stormwind -- mind you, we've gotten some pretty encouraging news on that front!

TrollingAzeroth asked:

Q for the Q: since there is a fierce debate about when (or if) flying will be introduced in WoD, Blizz has stated that one of their primary concerns with flying is the ease of skipping or eluding planned content. If so, then why not remove other quality of life additions first? First and foremost, remove the zone map indicators telling where a quest objective or item is located. Make us LOOK for things again. Enough vague references can be included in the quest text to give us an idea of where what we're looking for is at. In my opinion, this feature speeds us up considerably more so than the act of flying. Thoughts?

There is a distinct difference between being able to see where you need to go to do a thing, and being able to bypass any content between you and that thing you need to go do. Having some kind of pointer or indicator of where you need to search is just fine. Being able to fly over anything and everything in your way, not so much.

Interestingly enough, I've been playing a bit of Wildstar since it came out, and it doesn't have flying mounts at all, to my knowledge. This has not stopped the game from being fun in any way -- leveling is interesting, the mobs and fighting system are fairly complex but fun, and honestly, I don't miss flying at all. Not one bit. In fact, the game rewards you for exploration, if you choose that particular path. It actively encourages you to wall jump and climb things and go out of your way to reach areas, and that's something that would be horribly cheapened if they added flight. It would wreck the entire path.

But I would say however, keep in mind that although it has been stated flying will not be available at launch, Blizzard has yet to say one way or another whether we will see flight added in the expansion at some point with a later patch. Don't panic. It's okay!

gan7114 asked:

Ok, so, in that picture of Rossi's tauren in the alpha (from Breakfast Topic), we see Khadgar and Thrall standing in the background. But, Thrall is tagged as "Thrall." Which is he going by these days, according to lore? He seems to be going by "Thrall" in the game, but in War Crimes, it is now PC to call him "Go'el" (from both sides).

In canon, his name is Go'el. In the game -- all over the game really -- he's still being referred to as Thrall. It would be kind of confusing for players that hadn't read the novels if Thrall suddenly went from being called Thrall to Go'el overnight, I imagine that's got at least some small reason to do with it. Although according to Senior Historian Sean Copeland, he might finally get that name change in Warlords -- keep in mind we're still in alpha here. Nothing's final just yet!

braellyn asked:

Q4tQ: For once, I want to go into a new WoW xpac as spoiler free as possible. I've already got some big spoilers for SMV that I wish I could unlearn. My question is: Should I just avoid WoW Insider until WoD drops and I play through it, or will care be taken, like Rossi has in today's Queue, to give us as much warning as possible when story spoilers are about to be revealed?

If something is major spoiler content, you will see it clearly labelled as such, and you won't see any spoiler content before the break. That seems to be the general rule around here, and it's certainly one that I apply to any content that I write. I wouldn't be too worried about it if I were you. The only place you might find spoilers running rampant is in the comments section -- while I generally discourage people from talking about that sort of thing in the comments, I can't really prevent them from doing so.

@RMJE92 asked via Twitter:

what do you think the warlords pre-event stuff will be? also will monks be horribly out of place?

We don't really know just yet! All we've been told so far is information regarding the opening event for Warlords, as in what happens when you get the expansion for the first time and hit play. I'd assume it's going to have something to do with the Dark Portal, since we know that's going to change dramatically in Warlords -- but the extent of what we're going to see? I have no idea.

I don't think monks will be out of place in Warlords. To be perfectly honest, I think the strangest thing that will need explanation in the new expansion is draenei shaman. Obviously they exist in our timeline, but I imagine they'd look really, really weird to the draenei of this alternate Draenor, particularly because they're practicing something that only orcs practice. I hope we see that addressed somehow, somewhere.

@kylecrane asked via Twitter:

q 4 q: did we ever figure out what that whole 'final Titan' thing was about?

Nope, we certainly haven't. I don't think we're going to see it addressed anytime soon, either. Although I do have some crazy theories about it ... but those will have to wait until I have them put together enough for another tinfoil hat edition of Know Your Lore.

Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em!